Leopard
by Evedawalrus
Summary: A shy, emotionless, girly-girl. An emotional, vicious fighting machine. A girl, stolen away, and made into something else. A girl. Lost. Scared. And all alone. I am Victoria Stone. And I want my life back.
1. Prologue

**Leopard**

**An Avengers Fanfiction by Evedawalrus**

000000000000000000000000

I used to hate stories. Stories about knights and dragons, spells and magic. And not just fairy tales. Stories about heroes. The underdogs who come out on top. Weaklings who undergo a transformation and come out as a glorious hero. Those kind of stories. I hated those.

I remember one day, I was reading the newspaper, and the headlines were blaring something about a guy called Captain America. Apparently he had been a weakling that had been pumped up with some serum and defeated some baddies, and them everyone thought he was dead. But he had actually been frozen in ice. Sounded a bit weird to me. I remember the exact words in my head.

_Just what New York needs. More superheroes._

Our city had everything. Spider-Man, Iron Man, some guy named Thor, and a bunch of others. In short, a lot. I remember looking down at the picture of the muscled guy clad in blue, red and white. A big strong guy who has everything perfect for him. A Hero.

I threw the newspaper in the trash.

The reason I didn't like superheroes?

Because everytime I saw another person with everything going just great for them, it reminded me that my life was the complete opposite.

After all, how could I possibly know I might turn out to be one of those heroes?

I'm Victoria Stone. This is my own story.


	2. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! It's awesome that I got such a warm reception to my prologue, so I decided to be continuing my story. Leopard is going to be an avengers fic, but will have some Spider-Man and Peter Parker appearances, probably in some upcoming chapters. Now for responses: **

**NellNell-555: Thanks! I wasn't expecting a review, and it's nice that you like Victoria. I'm trying to make her a good character, so tell me if you see anything OOC for her.**

**Anyway, please review, as it really gives me motivation, and if you're interested, follow and possibly favorite! Happy reading!**

**TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT**

**BREEP**

**BREEP**

**BREEP**

**BREEP**

"Freaking alarm clock..." I grumbled, still half asleep. The clock kept on screeching, all the way across my room. As much as I would have loved to simply reach over and unplug the annoying thing, it was situated far away from my bed. And that meant I had to get out from under my warm, comfortable covers. Shit.

I tended to swear when I was alone. It let me release frustration. Unlike very other part of the day. I opened my eyes to a melancholy grey ceiling. That's the downside to apartments. Whatever disgusting color the rooms were, that had to stay that way, unless you wanted to pay five hundred bucks to the owner. I lazily threw off my covers, and started shivering. It was frighteningly cold in my room, for some reason. I looked to my window to see that it was open. Stupid me. I pinched myself for punishment, and hissed at the sharp sting. If I didn't hit myself for doing something stupid, I knew that I'd instantly forget and do it again. It's a way of life.

I stumbled out of bed, shaking all the while, and hastily closed the window. The city outside was covered in a dirty grey powder, blanketing everything, even the roads. For a second my heart lifted. Maybe school would be closed today! Maybe the the roads would be too icy, or the principal got in an accident, maybe- with a rumble, the snowplow thundered by, pushing the glittering snow off the street. Of course. A heavy frown settled into its normal place in my face, and I turned to go into the bathroom. Passing by my alarm, I threw it to the ground. Other clocks would break. Not mine. I was pretty sure it had swore an oath to forever stay to torture me. There was nothing that could break it.

I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower. I turned it on, expecting a cascade of warmness, but instead was instantly drenched with cold water. As I scrambled out of the shower, I growled quietly.

I could already tell this was going to be a good day. The water heater seemed to be broken, so I was forced to wash my hair in the sink. It was horrible. After I had shampooed and conditioned my rat's nest, I looked at myself in the mirror, and smiled.

What met me was a mess. My plain brown hair, even after being washed, was long and curly, with wild ringlets hanging everywhere. I had tried straightnening it before, but nothing worked. Now, I just tried to make it manageable. I had a tiny and petite face, but it was by no means cute. It was pudgy and small, the complete opposite of the rest of my body. I'm tall. Very tall. I stood at Six feet, two inches, dwarfing most girls on my class. I'm tall and skinny, with stick figure arms and legs, awkward and weird. In short, I was dead ugly. At least, that's what I thought about myself. I heard everything wrong about me from the voice in the back of my head. It told me about how I was disgusting, how I shouldn't show my face anywhere. Ugly. Disgusting. Stupid. Dumb. The voice whispered, cover it up. Put on the mask. Hide your ugly face.

I started off with eyeshadow and blush, making my pale cheeks rosy and my eyes glow. Mascara came next, lengthening my short eyelashes. Eyeliner, blush, mascara, and finally a rosy red lipstick, looking great against my pale skin. I was like an artist at work, amplifying my few good features and covering up my bad ones. When I was done, a beautiful young girl stood before me, looking like she was a supermodel. Next, I tied up my hair in a messy bun, with cute ringlets hanging down. Then came fashion. A white miniskirt with brown pants underneath, keeping my long legs nice and warm, paired with a very pale blue long sleeved top. Then, fuzzy white socks and brown boots, finishing up the look. Downstairs I would throw on a cute red coat and black bunny hat.

As I smiled at myself in the mirror, a new feeling of self confidence settled in. Like this, I was pretty. Before, with my stick legs and pudgy face, I was ugly. Like this, I could feel good about myself. I was beautiful. I walked downstairs to an empty kitchen, and a note on the fridge.

Had to leave early, be back late. Ten dollars on the counter for dinner.

Love you,

Dad

My mom had left my dad after I was born. My dad had to raise me, and and of course deal with the struggles of being a single father. Having to take time off work, scraping for money to keep up, and when I was old enough to take care of myself, work from six to nine. He was gone all day, every day. I knew it wasn't his fault I never saw him, but somehow, I resented him for it. I got a bowl of bland brand name cereal, and read the newspaper as I tried not to smudge my lipstick.

Politics, crime, more politics. Then, a new headline caught my eye. Captain America returns, it screamed. So some weakling turned into a big buff superhero and defeated nazis, saved the world, then got frozen and unfrozen now? Superheroes. I grimaced. I hated superheroes. In New York, there's more superheroes than you can count. I didn't hate them for the reasons J Jonah Jameson, Head of the Daily Bugle did.

Every superhero running around had a perfect life. There were wisecracking spider man swinging around midtown, equally witty billionaires in iron suits, and now a super buff hero decked out in the American flag. They all were heroes. Super. Handsome. Spectacular. Amazing. Even ultimate. And nothing like me. They would go on living their perfect little lives, not a care in the world. And I would go on like this. The complete opposite of them.

I threw the paper in the trash.

Then, I put on a white coat instead of the red one, shouldered my backpack, and left, out into the bitter snow.

I trudged out into the street, and caught the city bus heading for midtown high. Everyone was silent, but I could feel the teenage boys staring at me. That was a side effect of the makeup and clothes. I sighed, and looked at my feet. Suddenly, the bus came to a screeching halt, and I heard the sound of metal tearing. People started screaming, and I looked to the side of the bus, and joined in with the chorus. A man, or monster, whichever, was holding the bus by its side, and with a shudder of metal, ripped the entire front off! People started breaking out of the doors and windows, anywhere they could escape, but I was frozen in terror. Crime was frequent in this city of mine, but I had never been in this kind of situation before, so my body didn't know how to react.

The grey skinned monster reached out and grabbed me by the waist, making me suck in a breath between screams. What would I do, what would it do, what was going to happen!? My blood raced, and I screamed as loud as I possibly could. I forgot if the monster said anything, but then- thump, thwack! I was flying through the air. Then I felt something catch me on the back, and I was lowered to the ground. A man dressed in red and blue appeared in front of me, and asked,

"Hey, you okay?"

He sounded young, with a voice I almost thought I had heard before.

"I-I'm fine. I think."

The guy nodded.

"Hope Rhino didn't rough ya up too much."

He looked at his watch, and the white eyes on his mask widened.

"AGH! I'm gonna be late! Well, see ya around!"

Then, he put out his arm, and jumped away, as I remembered his name.

Spiderman.

I just got saved by Spider-Man.

I stood in the snow, slowly blinking. Then, it hit me. I was going to be late for school! As I ran down the road, cursing under my breath all the while, I kept thinking that one thought. I got saved by Spider-Man. I remembered the helplessness I felt as I was captured by that monster. And I hated it. I hated being the screaming maiden, needing some, some superhero to save me.

And I gritted my teeth as I ran down the dirty, icy road.


	3. Chapter 2

I really like this chapter. I worked on this for a few hours, and I'm pretty proud of it. Hope you guys like it too.

Yeah, there's going to be some Peter Parker in this chapter. No big friendships or anything, he'll just show up for a few lines.

Anyway, review, please! It really gives me motivation to write more.

TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Midtown High. I'd take time to admire its ugly brown walls and grey floor if I weren't running for my life to get to class. I ran through the halls, not bothering to stop at my locker or take off any of my heavy clothes. The halls were already empty, a sure sign that class had already started. I quickened my jog to a sprint. Left, up the stairs, now right-

"Oof!"

"Ow!"

I cried out as my head collided with something very hard and masculine sounding, and fell to the floor, my books scattering. I rubbed my hurt cranium, and looked up to see another teenager, a boy I recognized by the name Peter something, I couldn't remember his whole name. He was a nerd who hung out with other guys I didn't know, and I never had really paid attention to him. He was currently standing above me, offering a hand and a sheepish smile.

"Hey, you okay?"

He asked. And for a second, his voice sounded familiar, like I had heard it before... I mentally slapped myself. Of course I've heard it before! He's in my class, for frick's sake! I dismissed the feeling, and accepted the hand. I tend to not touch people. It makes me nervous, being in contact with others, and yes, it's silly. I guess I was afraid he would start hitting on me, like most of the other boys here.

"Y-yeah. I'm just late."

Anyway, he helped me up surprisingly easily. I didn't know such a nerdy kid could be that strong, but I just assumed that I was so skinny, it was just easy. After he helped me up, we just stood there awkwardly. Then I realized we were still holding hands, and hastily jerked it away.

"Uh, I'm late too. Guess we're just unlucky, huh…"

Silence. I felt like I should say something, but my mouth wouldn't cooperate, refusing to speak. Peter broke the silence.

"Um, you look really-"

"Thanks, um, gotta go. Bye."

I blurted out. He was going to compliment me. I hated when people complimented me. Why couldn't they just ignore me, then I could melt into the background...

Then, hiding an enormous blush decorating my pale face, I sped away. That was weird. Again, I didn't like physical contact. Actually, I didn't really like much contact at all. Even though science says humans need to be around other humans, I would disagree. If I was all alone today, I'd be perfectly fine. Then, I could wear my makeup in peace, and no one would be there to notice. Other people just made everything complicated.

I finally came to my classroom, where I heard voices inside, the main one being the teacher. Great. Class had already started, and I would have to interrupt her. And if I walked in while the teacher would talking, she'd stop talking, which would attract the attention of everyone, and everyone would stare at me! I gritted my teeth. I wanted no attention on me, but if you're late, there's no avoiding it. So before I turned the old knob and entered, I took a very deep breath, and prepared my best poker face.

Just don't look at anyone. No one is looking at you. You are completely invisible.

And I walked in, clutching my books tightly to my chest.

"In the midst of war, the warring nations sent spies to sneak into enemy territory… And speaking of sneaking, there's Miss Stone now. Miss Stone?"

My heart skipped a beat, and I tightened up. Mrs. Rancor, the most cliche mean teacher ever, glared at me. People wondered why she was so mean, and the most popular theory was that Star Wars fans had made fun of her for her name. I never got it, not having watched the movies, but I had a theory of my own. Mrs. Rancor wasn't the prettiest woman, with an angular, pointed face, so she seemed to hate students who looked pretty. Example given, me. It's complicated. Anyway, she was the most cliche mean teacher you could think of. Tests all the time, pounds of homework every night, and so on. And of course, she just had to hate me.

I immediately reddened when nearly twenty heads swiveled around to look at me. I dared to look back at my classmates, and immediately regretted it. A brown haired hunk of a guy caught my eye, and winked. My jaw clenched, but I still answered my teacher.

"Yes, Mrs. Rancor. Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Rancor."

I squeaked, eliciting some chuckles from the class. She grimaced.

"And tell me, Miss Stone, were you trying to be fashionably late?'

She asked, her glare turning from daggers to battleaxes.

"No, Mrs. Rancor."

I could feel the heat of stares on my face, making my face look more red than white.

"Then tell me, why are you late?"

"T-the city bus I was riding... broke down. I had to walk." And by broke down, I meant ripped apart by a raging rhino monster, who proceeded to grab me, and then I got saved by Spider-Man. Like I was going to tell them that. If I did, Mrs. Rancor would give me detention for weeks for lying. So I told a little white lie. A believable one. Mrs. Rancor scoffed.

"Detention. Now, take your seat."

I mentally cursed. Detention?! That meant staying after school, and that meant not being able to leave immediately, and that meant… Him. I hid the pained look on my face and scurried to my seat. Lucky me, the only available seat left was next to a blonde jock, who immediately started ogling me the moment I sat down. He wasn't looking at my breasts, which were pretty large, but nothing special, but my face, which was almost as bad, if not worse. I set up a book and put my head way down. I tried to listen to the teacher, but with her horrible droning combined with my swirling thoughts, my mind wandered as my eyes kept staring.

I was such a hypocrite. This one thought stayed in my head every day, tormenting me. To get to the point, I wore makeup to give myself enough self esteem to show my ugly face in public. But at the same time, I made myself look so beautiful, all I did was attract more attention. Attention I hated. But what could I do? Not doll myself up? I shivered at the thought. The one time I had actually forgotten to put on makeup was on a Monday. There was an algebra test that day, and I had stayed up until three in the morning studying for it. I had barely gotten any rest, so in my sleep-deprived state, I had simply thrown some jeans and a shirt on and left. My eyes had dark rings around them, my hair sprung out everywhere, and I just looked horrendous. People stared and laughed. They laughed, and of course, people made fun of me. It was the worst day of my life. No matter what I did, I got only attention, attention, attention. People staring, ogling, and laughing.

So I stayed beautiful. It was the boys that were the problem, whether they flirted or just stared at me. Every day, boys would come over, talk to me, hit on me. It was incredibly hard to even speak to them, because apparently they even thought my voice was sexy. My voice wasn't sexy. Was it? Some of the worst were the jocks, the muscular guys that thought life was a high school movie. They had the twisted mindset that in high school, everything was a cliche. That the pretty girls were dumb, that if they were beautiful, they would fall for the big, strong boys. That I secretly loved them. Because the jock always ends up with the pretty girl, right? It made me sick.

So they would flirt with me endlessly. Not responding? Just shy. Saying no? She was playing hard to get. Whenever I'd get asked out, I'd reply with a quiet, "No thank you.". If they were normal people, they would get the message. Not these guys. And they would pressure me. I was weak, so they could easily pick me up and toss me around as if I were a football with ease. If they cornered me, I would just have to run. Luckily, that hadn't happened yet. I had tried to buy pepper spray, but it was surprisingly hard to find. So I just made sure that when school got out, I would immediately go to the bus. I never stayed after school, ever. Except today. I swallowed the rising bile in my throat. My throat burned.

Then, I noticed something white enter my field of vision, and glanced to my side. Next to my desk was a buff, fiery-haired jock, who was currently smiling flirtingly at me. Wonderful. That was Robert, or "Robbie", as his friends called him, along with the rest of the school. He was one of the reigning jocks, being the one who scored the winning goal on our basketball team's biggest match. Everybody liked Robbie. Everybody except me. One time he almost touched me (putting his hand on my hip), and would have if it were not for a teacher who had suddenly appeared in the hall. He acted like nothing was wrong, and not wanting even more attention, I played along.

I silently picked up the note and read it, not even guessing what it said. I already knew.

So I hear you're staying after school,

I read. I took a deep breath, and wrote back.

So what

I scribbled, my blush going at full force.

How about you pass by the gym and I could show you some stuff?

The note included a smiley face that was winking. I felt a wave of disgust and anger roll over me. I had felt like this before, but I managed to rein in my powerful feelings. This time, it almost broke my mental walls, and at that moment I had an extremely strong urge to stand up and start screaming at "Robbie". My fists clenched, threatening to break the pencil I was holding. But with a tremendous heave, I pulled the feelings of rage to the back of my mind, and once again placed my emotionless mask back onto my face. Now I could rationally think. Yet, the grumbling storm lingered at the corners of my brain.

no

I hastily wrote, and caught a look of disappointment, then anger flash across Robert's face. My heart dropped. As soon as my detention was over, I had to run away as fast as I could. Then, I pulled away from my confusing thoughts and focused on the lesson, which had somehow gone from spies in world war two to psychological torture. How ironic.

The day passed by quickly, but all I could think about was detention. I formulated a plan. As soon as detention was over, run as fast as I could out of school. If I see jocks, race by them. Watch out for outstretched legs. Then, catch a cab and go home. Simple. But if it was so simple, then why were my palms getting so sweaty?

Then, it came. When the bell rang, I hurried over to the detention room. There were a few guys there for starting a wild food fight in the cafeteria, a few girls for breaking dress code with their practically see-through blouses, and some others. I just kept my head down and didn't make eye contact with anyone until the teacher got up to dismiss us. Before he even finished talking, I was out the door and sprinting down the hall. I ran downstairs and kept going, until- my breath whooshed out of me as I hit someone for the second time today.

"Sorry, Peter-" I started, thinking I had hit the same person as before.

"Peter? Peter Parker? You're too hot to be hanging out with that dweeb."

Shit. I looked up to see Robert standing in front of me, smirking.

"So you came to your senses and decided to show up, huh?"

"I, um, well…"

"S'okay, I forgive you. Even though you're not blonde, you got a lot of air up there."

My heart started pumping. The anger I had been holding in all day came back at full force, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to keep from exploding. My muscles tensed up, and I dug my fingernails into my palm.

"Anyway, let's not waste any time. There's no one around…"

If I could've gotten even more pale, I would. He wouldn't. He couldn't.

"Listen, you're so pretty, but you don't do anything with it! With that face, along with your other assets, you could have every guy in the school. And they way you push 'em off, you'd think that you didn't want 'em! You're lucky I'm persistent…"

Backing me up against the wall, he leaned in and closed his eyes, as mine widened. He was

Then, the wave of anger, disgust, and the tsunami of fear enveloped me, and instincts took over.

I slapped Robert, drawing blood with my sharp fingernails.

He collapsed on the floor, whimpering in pain.

And I ran. I ran out of the school, past the parking lot, and across the road. But I kept running. In the short burst of rage that made me hurt Robert...It felt good. I had released that vicious, dangerous anger on him, and when he cried out in pain, I enjoyed it. It was weird and sick, but I did. He deserved it, the sleazeball. And as I ran along the icy sidewalk, I realized something. The emotions that I always hid, when they were bottled up, it had hurt. They ate away at me, making me feel empty and hollow. but when I had released it, if only a small amount, it felt good. Really good. And as I ran across the icy streets of New York, I knew:

I had to do that again.

I had to hurt something.

Someone.


End file.
